Lad received large benefactions both from him and his house.
In the year 1463, when Fra Filippo had completed this undertaking,[1] he painted a picture in tempera for the church of San Jacopo, in Pistoja. The subject of this work, which is a very fine one, is the Annunciation, and contains the portrait of Messer Jacopo Bellucci, taken from the life, and depicted with great animation.[2] There is also a picture representing the Birth of the virgin, by this master, in the house of Pulidoro Bracciolini;[3] and in the hall of the Council of Eight, in Florence, is a picture of the Virgin with the Child in her arms, painted in tempera, on a half circle.[4] In the house of Ludovico Capponi, likewise, there is another picture of the Virgin, which is exceedingly beautiful;[5] and a work of the same master is in the possession of Bernardo Vecchietti, a Florentine noble of so much integrity and excellence that my words cannot do justice to his merits. The picture is small, the subject Sant’ Agostino occupied with his studies; an exceedingly beautiful painting.[6] But still finer is a figure of St. Jerome doing penance, of similar size, and by the same hand, which is now in the guardaroha of Duke Cosimo:[7] for if Fra Filippo displayed excellence in his paintings generally, still more admirable were his
- ↑ The paintings of the Choir above described, which are without doubt the most important and most admirable of Fra Filippo’s works, were carefully restored by Professor Antonio Marini, in 1833, and on that occasion a work containing five engravings, the portraits of Fra Filippo, Fra Diamante, and Messer Carlo de’ Medici included, was published by the Canon Baldanzi, under the following title: Delle Pitture di Fra Filippo Lippi nel coro della Cattedrale di Prato. This publication gives interesting notices of Fra Filippo, and of his disciple Fra Diamante.—Ed. Flor. 1849.
- ↑ This painting has been removed from the church, and is believed to be in one of the German galleries. —Ibid.
- ↑ Waagen informs us that this work is now in the Royal Gallery of Berlin; it will be found under the No. 170, of the catalogue published in 1841.
- ↑ Believed to be lost.
- ↑ his work was in possession of Carlo del Chiaro, whose collection was purchased by Prince DemidofF, but it is believed that the picture in question had been previously sold.
- ↑ Still in excellent preservation, and now in the Florentine Gallery. —See Mrs. Jameson. Poetry of Sacred and Legendary Art, vol. i. p. 295.
- ↑ The fate of this picture is unknown.
